When Love Comes to Town

by Tom Lennon

“Love the tree house,” Shane said, sitting down beside Neil.

  “Don’t look now, but we have company at ten o’clock.” Neil had spotted Gary’s mother watching them from her bedroom window next door.

  “Huh?”

  “The neighborhood watch is at her gun turret,” Neil whispered, staring down at his runners, a wide grin on his face.

  “Should I kiss you?” Shane teased.

  “Piss off.”

  “Just a little cuddle?”

  “You do, and I move to America.”

  “She’d probably enjoy watching us.”

  “She’d have us burned at the stake.”

  “She’d fit right in in Belfast,” Shane said as he jumped to his feet and began to climb up into the tree house.

  Neil turned to watch him. “The first time I went up into that tree house, I couldn’t get down again.”

  “When was this? Last year?”

  “How d’you guess?”

  “I can see into the future.” Shane was sheltering the sun from his eyes, looking out across the neighborhood

  gardens.

  “What d’you see there?” Neil called.

  “I see a wee fellow called Neil…and, mein Gott! He’s burning at a stake!”

  “What did he do to deserve that?”

  “He was caught molesting an older man.”

  “The dirty pervert.”

  “Yo! Byrner!” Gary shouted.

  Neil’s heart missed a beat. Gary and Trish were strolling up the garden path. How much of the conversation had they heard? Then they spotted Shane, and Neil smiled to himself as he saw them raising their eyebrows in unison. Like lovers, our eyebrows will always rhyme. Shane swung down from the tree house Tarzan-style, and Neil thought quickly as he performed the awkward introductions, telling Gary and Trish that he had met Shane in the hospital.

  “What were you in for?” Gary asked, slapping Shane’s shoulder in his friendly way.

  “Can you not tell?” Shane opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. Gary was smiling as he and Trish shook their heads.

  “Mental instability,” Shane told them in a mischievous voice.

  “Well, you’d want to be nuts to pal around with this spacer,” Gary joked, pointing at Neil.

  “Here, Neil, we got you these,” said Trish, handing Neil a cheap pair of mirrored sunglasses.

  “Tack-y,” Neil said, putting the sunglasses on and grinning at everyone. “But I like them.”

  “You look like Tom Cruise,” Trish smiled.

  “Tom who?” Neil joked.

  “Great for hiding red eyes,” laughed Gary.

  As soon as Shane headed back to work, Gary delivered the verdict, “Dead-on bloke.”

  “One of the best,” Neil nodded in agreement.

  “Good-looking bloke too; saw you giving him the eye,” Gary teased Trish.

  Oh God, how obvious can he get, Neil thought. If anyone was giving Shane the glad eye, it was Gary. He wondered if Trish ever noticed these things. She probably did, but chose to ignore them. And in about thirty years time, with four or five kids in tow, Gary would break the news to her, and go on the scene. And all the younger crowd would probably call him Uncle Sugar…

  Neil sighed and turned his attention back to the conversation. What are they talking about now? I don’t believe it; they’re planning what everyone’s going to do the night the final grades come out. And they’re not due out for a month. Sad. Nothing better to talk about, and they’re the ones who feel sorry for you. Your hospitalization has been the highlight of their summer so far. Fake the pain in the head routine.

  Better go now, folks, I need a lie-down.

  Neil needed to get his daily fix of Shane. He felt like a drug addict. Hearing his voice on the phone was a small fix, but seeing him was a major fix. Then, inexplicably, three days passed without contact and Neil began to suffer withdrawal symptoms. His parents noticed his edginess. Anytime the phone rang, his heart leaped. But it sank down below his knees again when it wasn’t Shane. He rang Shane’s house and left numerous messages with the girl who lived in the flat below. He could tell that she was getting fed up with him begging her to pin messages to Shane’s door. The one phone in the house was in the hallway, and Shane had warned him that he often didn’t receive his phone messages. He began to imagine things. His obsession had been knocked down. He was lying immobile in some hospital bed. Maybe he had gone back to Belfast; maybe someone in his family had died. Maybe he himself had died. Or worse than that, he had met someone new. By the third night, Saturday night, Neil couldn’t take it anymore. Against his mother’s wishes, he cycled into town. His hand was trembling when he pressed Shane’s doorbell. There was no answer. He chose another bell at random and rang it. A girl with long straggling hair opened the door. She told Neil she had seen Shane going out with some friends about half an hour before.

  “Try Hartigans,” she suggested when she saw the look of intense disappointment that clouded Neil’s face.

  But all his worries disappeared as soon as he spotted Shane. He was sitting in a corner of the crowded pub with another guy and two girls. Neil stood watching the four of them chatting. They were all around Shane’s age. College friends, he presumed. But why didn’t he phone me? Neil wondered. Better go home now, you’ve seen him, you’ve had your fix. C’mon, will you? You can’t stand there staring. He’ll get the message that you called to the flat and he’ll phone you tomorrow. I have to talk to him. Don’t be silly, you’ll embarrass him in front of his friends. They’re all about five years older than you. I could say that I work with him, my bike’s outside the door, isn’t it? Wake up, dopey, the barman’s asking you what age you are. Show him your ID. How embarrassing, everyone’s looking at you.

  “Made it by the skin of your teeth,” the barman jokes, handing back his ID.

  Better order a drink. “Soda water and lime please.”

  Last of the big spenders. More like last of the big benders. Light up a cigarette and try to look relaxed. Feel like an undercover agent. No, you feel like a dork, everyone thinks you’re here alone. Well, you are, aren’t you? Why doesn’t he see me? Because he’s engrossed in conversation with his friends, like everyone else in the pub. Anyway, even if he does see you, he’ll probably just ignore you. No, he won’t. I’m going to wait over here till he goes to the Jacks, then I can talk to him on his own. You could be waiting. I don’t mind. And what are you going to say to him? Are you going to tell him about the hours you spent waiting by the phone? How you’ve been afraid to leave the house in case you missed his call? If you did, he’d just think you’re pathetic, and he’d be right. Oh God, he’s seen me! He’s waving me over. And he’s smiling, he’s delighted to see me. His friends are looking around now. He’s calling me over.

  “This is Neil, the kid brother of an old girlfriend of mine,” Shane told his friends, patting Neil’s back as he squeezed in beside him.

  “Shane the heartbreaker,” the girl sitting on the other side of Shane said with a forced laugh.

  “An amicable split-up,” Shane turned to Neil. “Wasn’t it?”

  “He treated mah sister fine,” Neil said in his American drawl. The others laughed. Everything was fine again. He could tell that Shane’s pals liked him, especially the two girls.

  He had guessed right, they were college friends of Shane’s. One of the girls and the other guy were a couple, who were heading off to work in London soon. The second girl, Geraldine, obviously had romantic designs on Shane. She kept grabbing hold of his arm, but she didn’t realize who Shane was playing footsie with under the table. The drink took effect quickly on Neil, and he blurted out that Becky was coming home for the weekend, bringing inquisitive looks from the others.

  “She’s my girlfriend,” Neil told them, and very nearly cried out when Shane pressed his mountain boot down firmly upon his runner.

  “She’s au pairing in France,” he explained.

  “I hope you treat her better than Shane treats his women,
” Geraldine joked, but Neil could tell that she was being deadly serious. Her expression reminded him of the confused look he had often seen on Yvonne Lawlor’s face. But, in his excitement, Neil was making a lot of stupid comments, and he could tell that Shane was embarrassed by him.

  At closing time, Shane and his three friends went nightclubbing on Leeson Street. Neil headed off home, despite the girls’ attempts to entice him into the nightclub. He wanted to scream as he cycled off. It had been impossible to speak privately with Shane. He thought that Shane might have wrangled some way of sneaking him into his flat, but the awful thing was that he could tell that Shane didn’t even want him coming to the nightclub. He felt worse now than he had earlier. It was foolish coming into town. He wanted to get knocked down, nothing serious, just enough to get back into hospital again and then Shane would be back the way he was. And when he got out of hospital, he’d behave more maturely; he’d read up about law and he’d impress Shane’s friends with his comments. There’d be no more childish remarks from him. If only he could turn back time.

  An empty beer can narrowly missed his head as he cycled past Sachs Hotel in Donnybrook. His bike wobbled precariously when he looked around and saw three drunk blokes laughing at him.

  “Wankers!” he shouted when he was safely out of reach. The drunks roared abuse after him. Cycling through the night like this reminded him of his Saturday nights of old. Rather than go to Hollies he used to head off aimlessly on his bike, just so his parents wouldn’t think he had nowhere to go. It was a strange time of night. The streets would be deserted. Everyone seemed to be packed into the pubs. He would hear the clamor as he cycled past. Sometimes he went to the cinema, but on one occasion he plucked up the courage to go into a pub in Milltown. And while he sat there sipping his pint, he kept looking at the door and then at his watch, to give the impression that he was waiting for someone. He vividly remembered one couple who was sitting across the lounge from him. Both were in their forties, and they had probably paid a baby-sitter so that they could get out for a drink together. During an hour or so of watching them, he didn’t see them exchange one word, friendly or otherwise. It was sad, he thought, but at least they had each other to be bored with. Then, three local couples around his own age squeezed in beside him. He soon became conscious that he was the main focus of their whispered conversation, so he gulped back the remainder of his pint and left. It was times like that that finally drove him onto the gay scene. But they were a thing of the past now.

  He reached Hollywood Nights, stopped his bike on the opposite side of the road, pulled the peak of his baseball cap down to cover his face, and watched the swarms piling into the nightclub. He recognized a number of them. But still he felt no temptation to join them. He took Becky’s letter from his pocket and read it again. Her impending weekend home cheered him up. Then his heart froze. He had forgotten to tell Shane about his free house. A burst of adrenaline pumped through his weary limbs as he turned his bike around and began to pedal furiously. He had to get to Leeson Street before they switched nightclubs.

  The drunks were nowhere to be seen when he sped through Donnybrook. On he pedaled, past all the familiar buildings, over the little bridge, and right into the teeming nightlife. Hoards of wild revelers packed the street now. People were shouting and screaming, car horns hooted, drunks staggered on the pavements, police cars cruised down the street, and taxis double-parked. Neil stopped to lock his bike to a set of railings. A decrepit old woman was begging on the pavement. All the nightclubbers ignored her as they passed. But Neil could see flickers of embarrassment cross some of their faces. Maybe, like him, they saw their mothers in the poor woman. He must be a poet, he thought; that was the sort of thing poets thought about. Another problem soon presented itself though. The thick-necked bouncers insisted that he was too young for their nightclub. It took him a couple of minutes to convince them that he wasn’t going to stay in the club, that he only wanted to get an urgent message to his brother. Such was his insistence that some of the other nightclubbers began to plead his case for him and the bouncers eventually relented.

  He strolled into the dimly lit cauldron of pumping dance music, ignoring the waitress’s attempts to get him to buy wine, inspecting faces. A sharp dagger of pain stabbed right through him when he saw them kissing. They seemed to be glued to each other, Shane and Geraldine, lost to the world in a snug overlooking the dance floor. A bottle of wine sat in an ice bucket on the table in front of them. Minutes passed. Neil wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. His life was in tatters. But then his heart surged. The kissers surfaced for air and Shane spotted him. He was coming over.

  “What’s up?” Shane had to shout over the music.

  Neil struggled to prevent his voice from wavering.

  “Forgot to tell you,” he said, forcing his lips into a smile. “I’ve got a free house tomorrow.”

  “A what?” Shane stumbled, moving his ear closer to Neil’s mouth.

  “A free house…My parents are going to a wedding in Limerick. They won’t be back till late.”

  “Ach, great, I’ll come by,” Shane beamed, clapping Neil on the back.

  “Any time in the afternoon.” Neil was struggling to contain himself. He wanted to fling his arms around his Adonis. Instead he returned Geraldine’s friendly wave. Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of some other drunk college friends of Shane. Neil sidled away unnoticed.

  His heart was singing as he skipped up the steep steps out of the dungeon nightclub. The bouncers gave him a vacant stare when he tapped them on the shoulder and announced his departure. The old lady grabbed hold of his hand when he gave her his last fiver.

  “God bless you, love,” she whispered in a husky voice.

  “That’s okay,” he said with a grin, moving away from her before she had time to kiss him. A fiver! Even for a poet, he was mad! But what the hell. His bike seemed to find its own effortless way home. What did it matter that Shane was kissing Geraldine, he thought. Sure, hadn’t he bonked the brains out of Yvonne Lawlor last March? It was silly worrying about it. Things like that didn’t really matter.

  Bright sunlight streamed through his bedroom window the following morning. Birds were singing, the foghorn sounded way out at sea, a dog was barking somewhere, and church bells rang in the distance. It seemed as though all the lazy Sunday morning sounds were celebrating the arrival of the special day. He was curled up blissfully in bed, resisting all temptations to caress his morning glory, when his mum came into the room.

  “What time were you in at last night?” she asked, feigning annoyance.

  “Early enough.” His voice was husky from all the previous night’s cigarettes.

  “You want your head examined, going out on your bike at that hour,” she added, prodding him gently.

  “I only went down to Andrea’s house,” he lied.

  “Well, you know what the doctor said.”

  Neil groaned. “Are you going now?”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll go, love,” his mum said, sitting down on the side of his bed and tenderly pushing his hair back off his forehead.

  “Why not?” Neil asked.

  “Ah, it wouldn’t be fair to leave you, so your father’s going to go down on his own.”

  Neil had to struggle to control his mounting panic. “Don’t be silly, I’ll be all right,” he assured her. All his plans were in jeopardy.

  “Ah, no, I couldn’t leave you here on your own,” she sighed.

  Neil thought quickly. “Gary and Trish and a few of the others are coming over later,” he said, avoiding his mum’s concerned gaze.

  “Oh, are they?” his mum’s frown eased.

  “Yeah, we’re going to watch videos. So you needn’t worry, I won’t be on my own.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right, love?”

  “Mum,” he drawled, cocking his head sideways and looking at her as though she were a simpleton.

  “Well, I’m going to prepare some food for
you,” she said, standing up, “and I want you to eat it.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he promised, making the shape of a cross on his bare chest.

  “And don’t forget to go to Mass,” she added as a parting shot.

  Neil raised both his arms toward the ceiling, threw his head back, and closed his eyes in silent celebration.

  Neil stood at the doorway, waving to his mum and dad as they reversed out of the driveway. Clenching his fists in jubilation, he watched the car drive off out of sight. It was time for action stations. He got the vacuum cleaner out and gave his bedroom a quick run-over, tidied away all his scattered clothes, hid the teddy bear at the back of his sock drawer, and put clean sheets on his bed. Then he vacuumed the living room and the hallway, removed all the photos of himself as a child from the mantelpiece, took his dad’s classical records out of the cabinet and left them stacked neatly on the floor beside the record player. He couldn’t wait to witness Shane’s reaction when he saw them. He smiled as he placed a bottle of his dad’s homemade wine strategically on the table. Uncle Sugar had taught him something after all. Get them drunk and have your wicked way.

  After lunch, Gary and Trish called and he told them that he had to go into the hospital for a check-up.

  “On a Sunday?” Gary was surprised.

  “Hospitals don’t close on Sundays,” Neil replied with a laugh.

  “There’s a free concert in Blackrock Park,” Trish said.

  “I’ll try and get down there later,” Neil said, feeling a little guilty at the way he was treating his friends.

  “Mick Toner’s band is playing,” Gary said.

  “Oh God,” Neil laughed. “All-ticket, I presume.”

  “There’s a rumor that Sinead O’Connor might be making a surprise appearance,” Gary said.

  “Fuck off,” Neil grinned in disbelief.

  “And the Hothouse Flowers,” Trish added.

  “Are you serious?” Neil’s eyes lit up. He knew Trish never spoofed.

  “That’s the word on the street,” Gary added.

  “I’ll definitely make an appearance then,” Neil assured them, deciding that he’d drag Shane down to the park with him. Why not join all the rest of the happy couples?